Monday, October 6, 2014

More conspiracy theories at WUWT, this time it's HadCRUT4

I don't have time for a long post right now, so I'll just comment on one of today's recycled conspiracy theories at WUWT (archived here). It relates to the newest version of HadCRUT4.

The trio of WUWT record-keepers, Werner Brozek, Walter Dnes and Just The Facts, are musing nefarious intent is behind the release of HadCRUT 4.3.0.0, which replaces version 4.2.0.0:

Why are they changing things so quickly? Do they want to take some of the heat off GISS? Are they embarrassed that Dr. McKitrick has found no statistically significant warming for 19 years and before the ink is barely dry on his report, they want to prove him wrong? Are they determined that by hook or by crook that 2014 will set a new record?

It's a strange question - to complain that improvements are made too quickly. Would they prefer that the scientists sat on the information for a few years? That they kept it hidden?

Their "nefarious intent" musing is one of the classic signs of conspiracy ideation. What this trio are implying that the Met Office Hadley Centre scientists are making up stuff, which is ridiculous. Their tossing in McKitrick's analysis is a distraction. They want to fool people into thinking global warming has stopped. It hasn't. That's probably why this trio are a bit concerned that 2014 might rival the previous hottest years on record - 2010 and 2005. Even without an El Nino (which might still emerge before the end of this year.)

Even without the new version, temperature records change as more data is added. This can effect records going back some years. Even way back in time, because of the way data is gridded and anomalies are calculated.

The newest version of HadCRUT4 (version 4.3.0.0) has more grids covered than the previous version. In particular, it now covers more of the high northern latitudes as well as more of Africa, South America and some other parts of the world. (The Arctic is warming faster than most places, so more coverage would be expected to raise the anomaly in more recent years.) You can see the difference in the animation below (h/t KC), in which I compare the grid coverage back in May this year (HadCRUT.4.2.0.0) with that in August (HadCRUT.4.3.0.0). I've added highlights to show some of the areas that now have more coverage:

As you can probably guess, the greater coverage in the high latitudes means that this version brings the anomaly in recent years a bit higher. The Arctic is warming faster than most places. This can be seen in the chart below:

You can't easily see any difference in the main chart, so the Met Office has added the variance in the bottom panel of the chart to make it clearer. The greatest positive variance is only around 0.02 degrees Celsius. The greatest negative difference is less than 0.01 degrees Celsius. It makes the data coverage more complete but doesn't have a huge impact on the long term change. Getting up towards a one degree rise in temperature over that in the early twentieth century.

I won't bother with the rest of the WUWT article.

From the WUWT comments

Just a few. The WUWT crowd seems nuttier every visit.

mpainter talks about some "UHE- unadjusted". Could he be referring to the satellite data UAH? If so, that has to have a heap of adjustments like diurnal adjustments, calibration between satellites etc, before they even get to convert the readings into temperature anomalies. At least the ground records are mostly from temperature readings.

October 5, 2014 at 2:46 pm
You have put your finger on the very nub of the problem. These adjustments are why I no longer believe the thermometer record. And then there is the UHE- unadjusted. And thus the thermometer record becomes grist for the propaganda mill.

I would also add that each adjustment means they got it wrong last time. The more adjustments, the greater the track record of being wrong, and there is no reason to believe they are getting closer to being right. So why believe them at all?

October 5, 2014 at 2:52 pm
There must be emails, somewhere, that will give the world good documentation on their motivations for upward revisions at this time.

The batty duke chimes in, talking through his ignorant hat as usual. rgbatduke writes a very, very long rambling, mostly wrong comment which shows he doesn't have a clue about homogenisation. I'll just copy the first paragraph. He's as big a paranoid conspiracy nutter as the best of them at WUWT. Dunning and Kruger would have a field day with him. (How does he hold onto his job?)

October 5, 2014 at 2:54 pm
I’m made the observation that if one tests the p-value of the null hypothesis “the major temperature anomaly adjustments have been unbiased” one essentially rejects the null hypothesis with extreme prejudice. And not just HADCRUT — if anything, GISS has been worse. HADCRUT also fails to even try to correct for the UHI associated with their data sources, and GISS’s correction — you might have guessed it — produces more warming by the time they are done with it. Amazingly, they found a way to make UHI into UCI to the point where it actually net warms instead of knocking off the 0.1 to 0.2 C that is the most plausible outcome of correcting for it.

134 comments:

Just goes to show the deniers will make something up to complain about if they can't find anything. And they do like their rhetorical questions, I hate rhetorical questions.

Climate Etc is claiming there is no evidence the ocean is warming, again. I despair. I have already seen it picked up by some deniers today. In my opinion there is truth in the allegation she sets the denier talking points to a certain extent.

I will have a closer look at Dr Curry's opinion later (sorry about the subject change). But is it true that when error ranges are presented on an estimate, she only focuses on the lower bound? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

If energy's not in the atmosphere and not in the ocean, where is it? It would be helpful if Curry were to offer an alternative that does not essentially depend on denying the role of additional CO2 in the atmosphere. Or she cut to the chase and step out of the closet, if that's the real backstory.

"NASA Study Finds Earth's Ocean Abyss Has Not Warmed" with the tag line,

"The cold waters of Earth's deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005, according to a new NASA study, leaving unsolved the mystery of why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years."

a.k.a. your usual denier spin on things. Don't they know Brother Trenberth resolved this particular issue years ago? The science is settled on OHC, that's where all the greenhouse gases have gone and why we now have oceans of acid.

"Landerer also is a coauthor of another paper in the same Nature Climate Change journal issue on ocean warming in the Southern Hemisphere from 1970 to 2005. Before Argo floats were deployed, temperature measurements in the Southern Ocean were spotty, at best. Using satellite measurements and climate simulations of sea level changes around the world, the new study found the global ocean absorbed far more heat in those 35 years than previously thought -- a whopping 24 to 58 percent more than early estimates."

"Before Argo floats were deployed, temperature measurements in the Southern Ocean were spotty, at best.."

We don't know what the Southern Ocean temperature was before Argo floats were deployed (say, 2003), but now we that they are out there we can declare that said Southern Ocean has warmed over the last 35 years?

Richard, given it was only a couple of years ago that there was no commercial shipping there in *summer*, to be talking about year-round navigation is amazing and (depending on the cargo) risky to the environment.

If you're interested, here are the results of a straw poll at a recent conference on the Arctic - about when attendees figured the Arctic would be ice free in summer (to all intents and purposes - which I think means less than one million sq km of ice).

https://twitter.com/micheltsamados/status/514436189143986176

It's from scientists but it's in no way a scientific prediction. Just gives you some idea of the current thinking. There were more votes for 10 to 30 years than any other category, which is in line with what I've seen elsewhere.

Maybe no commercial shipping worldwide but the Russians have been using icebreakers since the 1930s in the Arctic region for internal commercial use. They were going to offer up the North sea route back in 1967 but the Suez crisis put paid to that, I am not sure of the political reasons for that but it was only until the break up of the Soviet Union that it became feasible again. Oil and gas has become the main driver today, As the Moscow times says the main routes are south but nonetheless in the 2010/11 season 10,000 ships were rescued.

Soviet traffic on the NSR peaked in 1987 and declined rapidly afterwards, with associated deterioration of the infrastructure, following the collapse of the Soviet/Russian economy. The route was formally opened for foreign vessels in 1991.

Y'all are missing the fact that "ice-class ships" are not ICE BREAKERS, they're just ships strengthened to deal with running into light ice.

So they're talking about year-round navigation by ice-strengthened ships (not ice breakers) rather than the occasional summer transit by ships accompanied by ice breakers brought along to clear a route for them, when necessary.

Millicent yes, being into naval history I smoked the inaccuracy in Richard's claim WRT 'two German battleships' straight away, for the vessel was what would be described in British terminology an AMC Armed Merchant Cruiser a Raider. Why do some insist on describing any 'warship' as a 'battleship' a practice prevalent in UK TV news.

Anonymous Richard, I am really not sure what your point is. You appear to be hammering away at some point about the feasibility of shipping routes through the Arctic as if that proves something about ice recovering but that is not the issue because, obviously, there has never been a problem with shipping routes.

However there obviously are many problems associated with a Northern Sea Route and commercial shipping will not be interested until those problems ease. And what is easing those problems? Oh yes, the lack of ice caused by climate change.

We have the Canadians with a funding pot to build ice breakers for the next 30 years, the Alaskans building 4, the American government lobbied to build more, the Russians building the biggest, most powerful ever built. I see no problem keeping shipping moving even though the Moscow times point out a resurgence of ice.

You misread my post. I think there is a problem with shipping routes until there is less ice and reliably less ice. It is you who seems to be trying to make some point about this and, possibly, linking it to recovering ice. Or not.

If you could actually explain which point you are making ...

I am not the only one who does not understand you - see Harry Twinotter's post above.

Recently there has been more work for our icebreakers. Over the past three years there has been a significant increase in transit freight traffic along the Northern sea route, this includes large vessels under foreign flags: both tankers and bulk carriers. For this reason, especially in the summer, there has been an increase in the need for icebreakers on the Northern Sea Route"

CO2 is a greenhouse gas and as more of it is emitted, the climate system will increasingly be forced into radiative imbalance. Temperatures, on average, will rise globally. Arctic temperatures are already rising faster than the global average. Arctic summer sea ice cover will diminish on average over the next several decades.

These are all matters of well-established fact. Disputing them requires that you deny the basic physics of the greenhouse effect, which would mark you out as an anti-science crank.

At this point you have a relatively simple choice: admit that there is no chance whatsoever of a prolonged resurgence of Arctic summer sea ice over coming decades or be dismissed as a nutter.

Estimates vary on when the Arctic will be substantially free of sea ice in summer. Nobody disputes that this is virtually inevitable now. Nobody is suggesting a WINTER ice-free Arctic any time soon. So increased shipping *year-round* will require a fleet of all-year-capable ice breakers. Obviously.

Please consider what I wrote above wrt greenhouse effect denial and crankery.

Reading the reports of increasing ice from the Moscow times,, ice breakers being built , bigger and more powerful - I wonder. Personally I doubt it will be ice free, But the idea it might be ice free makes a good story and not unique looking back over reports from the last 100 years.

You're going on and on with anecdotal data points when we have very solid data on long term ice extent in the Arctic.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7374/full/nature10581.html

The long and short is, Arctic sea ice is in a rapid decline unseen in the past 1000+ years. This is a consistent finding with all other areas of research on climate systems and is consistent with what is expected from increasing greenhouse gases from man-made sources.

I woud'nt say i am working it hard, i am just observing that the shriller the voices become the more ice breakers being built.

Business being the way it is would not build more ice breakers if not needed. It is fairly easy and cheaper to retrofit existing ships to handle a certain amount of ice, So if the ice was diminishing they would not waste money building ever larger, more powerful ice breakers.

But I think the sheer numbers of ships rescued in the 2010/11 season, 10,000 answers this.

Richard... Sorry, but you're still presenting anecdotal evidence that just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. You certainly can't use "they're continuing to build more ice breakers" as a metric for projecting sea ice extent.

Sea ice extent is going to be a function of changes in long term global temperature (and Arctic amplification), not the number of ice breakers.

Exactly, I have no idea why Russia would build bigger icebreakers and apparently you don't know either as you cannot make a coherent point about it. Prestige? Possibly.

Or perhaps actually read the article you cite:

The main objectives of these new icebreakers would be servicing the Northern Sea Route and carrying out various expeditions to the Arctic. Constructions of new icebreakers are important for Moscow as Russia is continuing to collect data to expand its continental shelf borders in the Arctic.

Still no joined up connection to whatever it is you are trying to say. Which I think is that the Arctic will never be ice-free. Or is it that it is perfectly normal to be ice-free?

1) Business history is littered with the bones companies who made poor decisions.

2) Or, perhaps, they're projecting that they can extend the trans-Arctic shipping season with ice breakers as the sea ice continually thins out.

The nature of Arctic sea ice is that it is going to continue to be variable for many decades, or even centuries, to come. Even after we get to seasonally ice free conditions the length of the ice free window is going to vary from year to year, gradually extending to a longer and longer period. But still, that ice is going to come back each winter and melt away in the summer into late Fall each year.

Richard... It's going to start to be seasonally ice-free within the next decade or so. That's something that's not been seen for quite a long time, and we've caused this to happen in the span of ~50 years.

"The objectives of these new icebreakers would be servicing the Northern Sea Route and carrying out various expeditions to the Arctic. Constructions of new icebreakers are important for Moscow as Russia is continuing to collect data to expand its continental shelf borders in the Arctic"

You mean this is the reason for even more larger more powerful icebreakers than in the 1930's.

Strange I would have thought with the decrease in ice they could scale back the size.

Richard : "Can i take a look at these model predictions, just post a link."

No!

In the time you spent to post 25+ incoherent comments in this thread, you could have found a few second to enter 'ice free arctic' in Google Scholar, or your favourite bibliographic database search engine (just kidding, I know you don't search bibliographic databases).

Incidentally, you could have spent a few minutes more to read the search results. Maybe you would have learnt something.

I tried to give you an answer on WUWT but three times my posts have disappeared. I assume I am being blocked or terminally moderated.

So you may complain of being restricted here but at least you were warned and it was not for being contrarian. At WUWT they make it too difficult for anyone to express anything that does not sing with the choir.

I would like to weigh in on this (talking past each other) conversation about the need for icebreakers in the future given the expectation of low summer ice coverage in the Arctic (ref. Richard, et al. above). My take (as a businessman) on the icebreaker issue is this: As the average Aortic temperature increases over time, several impacts will include (a) smaller areas with large ice coverage in most areas in the summer (what is thought of as the best shipping time), (b) more open passageways with smaller ice floes increasing earlier and later in the summer season (more open areas but still dangerous for shipping), (c) thinner ice over a large area in the winter (possibly easier to break up with an ice breaker) and (d) possibly variable movement of ice floes throughout the melt season (for a thin-skinned ship...yikes!). What would this mean to me as a shipper as I balance the risks (loss of ship), costs & time (alternate routes), etc.? I would see great advantage in the Arctic passageways as they open up and a longer season - time and $, the variables important in my profit/competitive model. But, I would worry about ice issues damaging shipping in the early/later part of the season more has year-to-year variance will add risk as I will want to start/end earlier/later each year. So, I wouldn't mind having an ice breaker or two around to help out. But, as I realize that the ice reforms a bit later and reforms a bit thinner each year (expected statistically from models of a warming Arctic and already demonstrated by observation) I would start betting that I could get a ship, or dozen, through later and later (earlier and earlier) in the season if I had an ice breaker (or dozen) keeping the Arctic passages open longer and longer. It may even be cost effective for me (shipper) to hire two or three ice breakers to lead a convoy of large takers and freighters through the forming ice - this is what I expect to happen as shippers become more and more familiar with the risks/benefits of Arctic route shipping. This is speculation, but it is based upon the millennia old economic thinking of shippers: how can I get my shipment to market cheaper and faster than the competition. The ocean floors are littered with the wrecks of those who took their chances, but that never stopped anyone because in the end the benefits outweighed the risks. The same is with the Arctic and the advent of ice breaker conveys might be just another means of mitigating risk. I for one, vote for more ice breakers.JCG

Don't ya' just love spell checkers? (Aortic temperatures). Indeed, our "Aortic temperatures" do seem to increase at times, as evidenced by the heated discussion on icebreakers. But let's not let it cause steam to come out of our ears! JCG

Richard... The definition of ice free conditions is anything below 1million km2. Initial ice free conditions could, at this point, occur any year. Maybe next year, maybe not for another 5 years. That's more a function of internal variability which is not predictable.

This is different than "seasonally ice-free" conditions. Seasonally ice-free would be sea ice <1M km2 each year, and even then we'll still likely get a year here and there that sneaks above that level.

Richard... Not really. The models don't pretend to try to predict short term variability. That's implied, to a certain extent, through the uncertainty ranges. But what you see in the difference between the models and the observations in these charts is that the actual observed trend is far below the model projections.

My premise is based on "ice free" for one is not necessarily "ice free" for another. Each interested person (or business) has a different working definition of "ice free". For a shipper, "ice free" is likely to mean something closer to "ice free enough to get ships through with sufficient risk mitigation to make it all economically worthwhile.". For one particular party of interest ice free might mean "no ice in sight for thousands of miles in any direction." For another, say a biologist, it might mean "no ice with swimming distance of the shoreline," whatever swimming distance might mean. A shipping company, to first order (i.e., focused on business), does not care what is causing any decrease/increase in Arctic ice, but does care if the state of ice (extend, thickness, motion) can be modeled well-enough to be able to make cost-effective decisions on whether to use an Arctic route at any particular time of the year ... or not. Since current climate models are predicting an increase in the duration and extent of "conditions more favorable for shipping" - as defined by the shipping company - shipping companies will start (have started) economic modelling of the use of the Arctic routes. For them, "no ice" does not mean "no ice in sight for thousands of miles," it means what cost-effective means are available to take advantage of the conditions (early, mid, let season) in spite of the presence of "ice". Using ice breakers to increase the number of ships/yr sent via the Arctic routes, mitigate risk, create proprietary routes to increase the bottom line and steal business from competitors is one strategy. I do not know if shipping companies are developing such strategies (likely they are) or when they might start implementing them (likely slowly over the coming decades). So what NOAA or ARCUS say is "ice free" may be only partially relevant to what a shipping company needs. The "talking about possible ice free summer by 2015" by NOAA was just that, "talk" and the probability of that occurrence was always seen as very low. No shipping company was ever going to bet the fleet on "talk." Whereas, based on models with predictions verified over time? Maybe, with cautious steps. The past (and current) models have provided good predictive capabilities over the last few decades, even if they have underestimated certain parameters.

Richard, if you are going to make a statement, particularly one that may be contentious, provide a link or few people will believe you and will think you are a denialist troublemaker or thread hog or both;

Richard, I've added some more links for you below. I haven't read all the comments so they might be repeats. Whatever. Then carry on your discussion somewhere else, where it might be relevant. Like a maritime forum or an Arctic sea ice discussion.

Hogging threads with ignorant off topic comments is not a way to make a good impression here.

Yes, Richard... That's the data from Stroeve07, as it was being discussed in 2007 on the NSIDC site.

The reference I gave comes from 2011, and is an update on those figures. Remember, Stoeve07 (along with the NSIDC post) are based on data prior to the 2007 and 2012 records, so you're not seeing those two data points on that chart yet.

Really? That's an extraordinary claim. Fully 1/10th of the global mercantile fleet was wedged in ice, even as rates for bulkers, containers and tankers continued so soft as to drive yards and lines into bankruptcy?

That's not by any chance a figment of your imagination, is it? How about a list of vessels so affected?

More ship traffic enabled by melt-back, particularly year-round, will require more ice-breakers for those situations where they run afoul of remaining ice. Richard mistakes the needs of greatly increased traffic for the amount of Arctic ice, which is separately quite available and dropping fast.

In short, Richard is waving red herrings. If there's almost no traffic, you only need a few tow trucks for when folks end up in the ditch. With lots of traffic, you need a fleet of them.

Further to KR and "actual data," researchers don't actually rely on shipping activity as a proxy for ice conditions, popular though voyage anecdotes are among frightened people hiding from reality. Shipping is a handy rhetorical loom for weaving a comforting fable and Richard knows that, of course, at some level.

The Russians are keen to claim an economic zone extending along the Lomanosov Ridge to the North Pole. Icebreakers large enough to maintain a presence at the North Pole all year round would strengthen their case, possession being 9/10 of the law.

Richard, before you toddle off to your maritime forum or make any more of a fool of yourself than you've already made here, try these links about about Arctic sea ice. They should keep you busy for a few hours at least.

Meier et al 2012: A simple approach to providing a more consistent Arctic sea ice extent time series from the 1950s to present

"So is there a strong relationship between sea ice loss and increased ship activity? Findings from the U of Ottawa study reveal that some relationship between sea ice reductions and shipping volume increases do exist, but the linkage was not as strong as might be expected. This suggests that other factors are playing a more prominent role in influencing Arctic shipping patterns, such as tourism demand, community re-supply and construction needs, as well as research and resource exploration activities. It seems like the perception that the Arctic is opening up because of climate change is greater than the reality"

Richard, stop your silliness. I see you are posting this rot on denier blogs, where they'll believe just about anything. HotWhopper is here to demolish disinformation - mainly disinformation about climate but we'll demolish disinformation about other stuff too.

In terms of actual transits, 2012 saw 46 vessels using the route while in 2013 71 ships took the NSR, an increase of 54%. While this percentage looks impressive, we have to keep in mind that we still deal with quite small absolute numbers. In contrast, the Suez Canal has around 18,000 transits per year and the Panama Canal about 13,000.

Furthermore, it is enlightening to take a closer look at some of the routes that the vessels took. In fact, 17 “transits” only started or ended in Pevek in Chukotka, and did not come from or go down to the Bering Strait. This is remarkable given that the NSR is defined in Russian law as a set of marine routes from Kara Gate, south of Novaya Zemlaya, in the west to the Bering Strait in the east.[3] Also Khatanga Bay and Anabar Bay in the Laptev Sea are mentioned once and twice, respectively as a port of destination, which is not anywhere close to the end points of the NSR definition.

So, if, say even one quarter of ships in the Arctic this year had to be rescued, that would mean there were three times as many ships there as those that went through the Panama Canal. And more than twice as many as crossed the Suez Canal. And more than 500 times as many as used the Northern Sea Route last year.

That's enough. Any more nonsense from you and it will be promptly deleted.

Haha! So the 10,000 stuck vessels is nonsense. As expected from deniers. BTW, Sou, did you notice that the blog owner in your link was running away from a bet with William Connolley on ice extent? Deniers talk a good game, but can't walk the walk.

People who've been made moronic by their ideology will repeat absolutely anything-- no matter how farcical-- if it helps cement their prejudice. Otherwise perfectly intelligent folks will skip past all safeguards against looking foolish and gullible, so long as what's on offer is compatible with their illusions.

Did Richard actually come up with this rumor on his own? It reeks of Goddard.

The weird thing is that it would completely contradict what Richard wants to believe. I mean if there were 10,000 ships needing rescuing then how many ships does he think must have been there? 100,000? There could only have been that many ships if a huge amount of the Arctic had become free of ice.

And 100,000 would probably be twice as many ships as there are merchant vessels in the world.

I think if one counts short sea vessels, ferries and the like the number comes to something like 100,000. How they all managed to cram themselves into the Arctic will remain an enduring mystery, as will the strange emptiness of the Suez and Panama canals, the failure of ferries to appear on schedule at their normal ports, etc. That's all part of "don't expect it to make sense."

We've got to think about all the icebreakers that supposedly rescued those 10,000 ships. Wikipedia lists icebreakers, including ones out of commission. Say there were 100 days - a bit longer than summer - that ships went into the Arctic and got stuck. That would average a rescue of 100 vessels each and every day. That's assuming an even spread, which would be highly unlikely.

On top of that, even assuming that all those 100 vessels took only one day to be rescued, there probably aren't enough icebreakers in the entire world to do that.

just for you Sou, please pass onto Joe as he did not believe ( Haha! So the 10,000 stuck vessels is nonsense) and i will post on his reply and mine to WUWT-

"The icebreakers in the Bay of Bothnia assisted 4 277 merchant vessels and 590 towing operations were conducted. The average waiting time was 9 hours and 7 minutes. 1859,6% of all port calls did not have to wait for icebreaker assistance at all, but 32,4% of the port calls had to wait more than 4 hours for icebreaker assistance (so-called long waiting)"

"According to statistics from the Baltic Sea icebreaking authorities, 10750 vessels received assistance from icebreakers this season"

Richard, you posted numerous times that 10,000 vessels had to be *rescued*. That report is about icebreakers assisting vessels to get through the ice in the ice-breaking season. That is, clearing paths through the ice in winter. That's normal traffic around and between ports in the northern latitudes. That's completely different to what you were claiming - and it's got nothing to do with summer ice disappearing in the Arctic.

Honestly. If you'd produced that report when you were asked (multiple times), you'd have saved yourself from immortality in the HotWhoppery. As it is, you are going to stay there - for either or both a ridiculous attempt by you to con HotWhopperites (who are pretty immune to being conned) or because you were too dense to know what you were talking about.

Next time you write something, make sure you provide a link because you cannot be trusted to tell it how it is.

Obviously there were not 10,000 rescues. There aren't that nearly enough ice-breakers in the Arctic. The report even reported one bad day where they actually had to take vessels through one at a time. Obviously that was abnormal. But it wasn't a "rescue", it was clearing a passage through the ice as happens all the time up there.

Each winter, where I live, long lines of cars form up behind the snowplows as they ascend the hills and mountain passes. The cars are certainly "receiving assistance" from the plows, but I doubt that they are "being rescued". The size of the snowplow fleet is determined more by the number of cars using the roads than by the year-to-year snowfall conditions.

Let alone the point that has been repeatedly made: surely, if, as you have not demonstrated, the number of such incidents has actually increased, then logically this is an artifact of more shipping being attracted to the more open, ice-free waters? Thereby arguing for the exact opposite of your claim?

This is exactly the kind of 'I've got my one factoid and I'm never going to surrender it' nonsense that characterises much of what passes for 'skepticism' among deniers. Witness all the 'but it was really warm one day in 1838' prattle that is used to 'refute' Australia's angry summer etc..

The Baltic Sea isn't the Arctic Ocean. Most of the Baltic isn't even above the Arctic Circle and can't be characterized even as "the Arctic region." The Baltic has been densely traveled by ships for hundreds of years. The Baltic has and will continue to ice over, routinely. Dealing with iced shipping lanes is not "rescue."

True dbostrom, Richard was a waste of time. 10k assisted NOT rescued, and in the Baltic and it's not summer ice and...

One interesting thing from Richard's pdf is the graph of ice extent on slide 9. I know it's terrible to eyeball these things, but post ~1987, it looks like there are fewer peak ice extents (dark blue) more minimum ice extents (grayish blue) and the overall trend looks down. Too lazy to try and quantify, but it does seem like a downward trend in extent. I surfed around and found this:"Information on sea ice extent in the Baltic Sea goes back to 1720. The maximum sea ice extent has been decreasing most of the time since about 1800. The decrease in sea ice extent appears to have increased since the 1980s but the large interannual variability prohibits a clear assessment as to whether this increase is statistically significant. The frequency of mild ice winters, defined as having a maximum ice cover of less than 130 000 km2, has increased substantially. The frequency of severe ice winters, defined as having a maximum ice cover of at least 270 000 km2, has decreased (Figure 2)."http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/arctic-sea-ice-1/assessmentand here is the chart showing the decrease:http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/maximum-extents-of-ice-cover

I just read an article wherein scientists hypothesize the melting Arctic caused the cooler average temperatures in the USA this year.

If that turns out to be true, in my simple mind, Russian ice breakers and doomsday sea level rise scenarios aside, the question becomes: will more Arctic melting cool more of the world?

As mentioned by Rob and others above, the Arctic melted much faster than predicted this year. Disappearing redheads aside, I don't remember any catastrophic weather events tied to the melting ... so far ... dun ... dun ... dun.

Will more Arctic melting cool more of the world? Serious question. Not playing gotcha (as if). (Not with this crowd anyway.) Shove some insight into my brain that I just can't derive from research papers and half-baked pop journalism.

BTW - this question is not really irrelevant to the article. Not as far afield as what has gone before. So if anyone wants to answer feel free.

I'm on the road so don't have time to give it full attention. I will point out that the melt this year wasn't a record. It was sixth lowest IIRC and just a bit lower than last year.

Specific weather events aren't necessarily the main issue. It's the connections the Arctic has - in the oceans and atmosphere, therefore the changes it will bring in climates in other places as the ice disappears.

I think I can answer. Yes, there is a theory that the reduction in arctic sea ice contributes to cold snaps in the US and in Europe, this theory is several years old. It's complicated so I will not try to repeat the details.

But no one is saying the GLOBE is getting colder as a consequence. The cooling is local, and is caused by shifting wind patterns. This is just a redistribution of hot and cold so the net effect is zero.

"If you want to write about Arctic sea ice, choose an article about Arctic sea ice."

Sorry. Feel free to ignore my comment immediately prior.

And FWIW, I just caught up on WUWT. I didn't mind Tisdale's rebut of your comments on his comments, but trying to harm a person's livelihood just because they hurt your feelings is shameful. I doubt he'll succeed, but the mere fact the attempt was made is pitiful. So lame.

Thanks. "Bob Tisdale" and those commenting are simply following Anthony Watts' lead. I'm not the first whose livelihood AW and his followers have tried to ruin and I don't expect I'll be the last. This was a bit more public than most of his efforts (he usually just makes threats in the comments, urging people to write to people's employers etc). Being a woman meant that some comments were a bit more, shall we say "colourful", than the usual personal attacks at WUWT.

If "Bob" and the commenters had had the science to back them up they'd have used it. Attacking me is intended to distract from the fact that "Bob" didn't have science on his side.

Yes, Sou. I think there must be a section of your blog that I have not seen or you are keeping hidden from us. I have searched in vain and cannot find anything to match what they are saying about you. So fess up and tell us where you make all these nasty postings?

I notice a couple of people who have been moderated here whinging about how they were shut down. On the way completely reinventing what actually happened and substituting some fantasy about how they bested you. Oh, oh - perhaps my conspiracy meter is not turned on? Perhaps you did delete all their sensible comments.

I don't have a clue what most are talking about. Maybe they haven't heard of the HotWhoppery or they just felt like making up stuff (like Bob did about me supposedly "speculating").

One of them I do recall. He got irate about something or the other and got more and more abusive. At one stage he started posting very silly threats (anonymously of course) that he was going to insert a rootkit on my computer. You might be able to guess who that was. Needless to say, he was banned. (Do I need to add that there is no way he could access my computer?) He's still smouldering from the look of it.

There are quite a few very strange people who live in cyberspace. And WUWT seems to attract them.

Pointing out someone is wrong, and giving the reasons why is considered a personal attack by some. They reveal themselves to be trolls in my opinion. Watch out for a sock puppet attack as well, it's insane I know but such is the mentality of a bully.

The comments below the Tisdale post are truly disgusting. Not what you would expect from decent people passionate about improving science, more something you would expect from political extremists. Extremists with emotional problems with intelligent independent woman.

Has nobody thanked Richard yet? I thought that as a demonstration of comedic faux scepticism it was golden. Garbled facts, conclusions that the 'facts' didn't support, and no time interval is too short if it gives him the trend he wants.

They are. For instance the early 20thCE warming which followed a very cold period, with high vulcanism, lasted about 20 years. Current warming, from a much warmer start, has been going on for getting on twice that and is continuing. Makes you think, doesn't it?

Richard - the chart you are referring to only shows six years or so of the last twenty years. The Arctic did warm up in the early part of last century, mostly attributed to internal variation, but there is less summer ice now than there was back then so it's already quite a bit warmer these days. The fact that it didn't cool right back down was what prompted international research in Antarctica. Scientists were already worried about global warming back in the 1940s. This is from 1947:

Look above, too, for my comment where I discovered that Richard's own doc on the Baltic showed ice was decreasing there, too. I also found this:"Information on sea ice extent in the Baltic Sea goes back to 1720. The maximum sea ice extent has been decreasing most of the time since about 1800. The decrease in sea ice extent appears to have increased since the 1980s but the large interannual variability prohibits a clear assessment as to whether this increase is statistically significant. The frequency of mild ice winters, defined as having a maximum ice cover of less than 130 000 km2, has increased substantially. The frequency of severe ice winters, defined as having a maximum ice cover of at least 270 000 km2, has decreased (Figure 2)."here: http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/arctic-sea-ice-1/assessment

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All you need to know about WUWT

WUWT insider Willis Eschenbach tells you all you need to know about Anthony Watts and his blog, WattsUpWithThat (WUWT). As part of his scathing commentary, Wondering Willis accuses Anthony Watts of being clueless about the blog articles he posts. To paraphrase:

Even if Anthony had a year to analyze and dissect each piece...(he couldn't tell if it would)... stand the harsh light of public exposure.

Definition of Denier (Oxford): A person who denies something, especially someone who refuses to admit the truth of a concept or proposition that is supported by the majority of scientific or historical evidence.
‘a prominent denier of global warming’
‘a climate change denier’

Alternative definition: A former French coin, equal to one twelfth of a Sou, which was withdrawn in the 19th century. Oxford. (The denier has since resurfaced with reduced value.)